24 September, 5.35pm – 6pm Giorgio Chiellini will close this edition of the Italian Tech Week in a dialogue with Maurizio Crosetti on the technological future of football
ITW
All the speakers of the Italian Tech Week
Italian Tech first renamed it Capitan-tech. Giorgio Chiellini, 37, captain of the national team that won the European Championship, is a leader who, despite his successes, never ceases to amaze. He anticipated a trajectory, to put it in his own words, “dawn of a new football that intersects football and technology, his passions”.
The captain’s profile outlines the traits of the athlete of the future: between investments, social media, streaming and blockchain. He invested in Vedrai, an artificial intelligence startup with an average age of 26.5, demonstrating concrete support for the new generations. He is co-founder of Mate, a social media agency with Claudio Marchisio. Because likes are not just likes, but they move economics: athletes manage their social presence in a strategic way, like real media houses. He is third among the 26 players of the Italian national team with 4.8 million followers on Instagram.
A media power that translates into growing commercial power: clubs are also looking at the possible impact on off-pitch factors in their transfer market decisions. The focus of the new football is shifting towards the players. PSG has 38.5 million followers, far fewer than the 245 million of the Argentine national team captain bought by the club. Messi also invested Gerard Piqué, his Barcelona teammate, on the effect, buying the television rights of Ligue-1 and 2 in Spain for the next three seasons (2.5 million euros).
A revolution that brings the real and virtual world closer together, in the sign of that disintermediation, thanks to social media and streaming, which is increasingly the prerogative of the football of the future. Are TV and newspapers still the home of football content par excellence? If so, how long if they don’t adapt their models? In the Asia-Pacific region, streaming is overtaking traditional television broadcasting.
Ibai Llanos, creator on Twitch was able to broadcast Lionel Messi’s debut match on his channel. A bet that of Kosmos, Piqué’s holding company, on a new form of entertainment. Seeing Messi with a different shirt from that of Barcelona has catapulted the football universe into a parallel reality, bringing the fans of the future, the new generations closer together with an effect similar to that of a video game like Fifa. Only it was real. Just as real was on the other side of the GOAT, the greatest footballers of all time, the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo to the Premier. CR7 first of all to land in social media football, helping to build it.
The Instagram post announcing his return to Manchester after 12 years garnered 12.3 million likes – the most engaging post in a club’s history. And the club’s stock value grew 5.8%. On the other hand, Juventus itself had anticipated the trend, scoring goals with Ronaldo off the pitch: an increase on all media and commercial lines.
The digital transformation of the football fan
by Riccardo Luna
The Italy of football, therefore, is not at the window. Giorgio Chiellini, appreciated beyond his footballing faith and one of the most relevant social-tech case studies in our country, it is no coincidence that his Twitter profile reads: passionate about technology.
In August on Blockasset he launched a collection of NFTs that sees him as the protagonist. The non-fungible-token system is involving clubs and athletes who can monetize by digitizing their memorabilia or iconic moments, thanks to the blockchain, whose application horizon is also extending to the eSports world, with the possibility of buying tokens. not fungible by video games. We are at the gates of the Metaverse: an Internet space parallel but in continuous connection with our physical world.
“Once upon a time” the President, pater-familia, who acquired a club for love, the most iconic will probably remain in the collective imagination Massimo Moratti, almost everything has changed. The models used up to now by the clubs have proved to be only partially suitable for managing a collision that has seen a 13% contraction in revenues on Serie A. It will take years before we know the real financial impact of the pandemic, meanwhile the technology seems to be providing an assist. Up to allowing an active participation of the fans in building the value of their team. Even if the question is more substantial than romantic, because with the new decentralized finance leagues, athletes, clubs are aiming above all at sources of revenue so far unexplored, and to conquer, according to Bloomberg, a younger audience who loves video games and technology even more than traditional sports.
Chiliz, the blockchain infrastructure that developed the Socios fan engagement app, is not the only one, but it is a reality that helps us understand the dimensions of the phenomenon. After finalizing a millionaire partnership as jersey sponsor replacing the historic Pirelli, in the first weekend of availability he sold one million Inter Fan Tokens. Fans can influence some club decisions and earn based on the possible increase in value.
There is no shortage of skeptics on the sustainability of the model. Among these the economist Carlo Cottarelli, engaged on the Interspac front which would instead guarantee a model of popular shareholding with the possession of real shares by the fans. Meanwhile, the new generations are looking to the football-blockchain binomial, which beyond the risks could represent a lever for financial education, still not very rooted in Italy among the youngest. The trajectory seems to have been traced, according to Capitan-tech. Welcome to the football to come!
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